Wizards' John Wall: Misses shootaround, expects to play – CBSSports.com
Wall missed Saturday’s shootaround with a migraine, but expects to play in the Wizards’ matchup with the Raptors, Wizards’ television host Chris Miller reports.
Wall filled up the box score in the Wizards season opening loss to the Heat to the tune of 26 points (9-16 FG, 1-6 3Pt, 7-10 FT), nine assists, three rebounds, three blocks, and one steal across 35 minutes. There does not appear to be much to worry about regarding his status Saturday, but he should still be monitored as tip-off approaches. Should his migraine ultimately get worse and keep him sidelined, Tomas Satoransky and Austin Rivers would see their expected minutes increase, while Bradely Beal could see more of a play-making role.
Daily Digits: Getting revenge against Toronto starts behind the arc – Bullets Forever
As we noted earlier this month, Washington had a pretty solid 3-point defense throughout most of last season, but it didn’t hold up in the playoffs against Toronto. Even though the Wizards shot 38.7 percent against the Raptors in the playoffs, they couldn’t keep up in terms of efficiency or volume.
Washington held the Heat to a respectable 12-of-35 from downtown in the season opener, but Miami isn’t loaded with shooters like Toronto. The Raptors shot over 42 percent from deep in their season opener against Cleveland and shot 37 percent in their win over Boston on Friday. Saturday’s game should give us a much better sense of where the Wizards’ 3-point defense stands early in the season.
Leonard pours in 31 points to lead Raptors to win over Celtics – TSN.ca
Irving had kind words for Leonard.
“You just throw it to him sometimes and he’ll go get you a bucket,” the Celtics guard said. “He commands double-teams, makes some tough shots, gets it going down the stretch. Honestly, he can put the whole team on his back. He’s shown it before. He’s just a special talent.”
The Raptors improved to 10-1 versus Boston at home. The two teams have accounted for 12 of the last 14 Atlantic Division titles, Toronto winning five and Boston seven.
OG Anunoby began the game wearing protective goggles after suffering a orbital contusion on Wednesday’s opener, but he ditched them after a few minutes on the floor. Delon Wright (groin strain) didn’t play.
The Raptors led by three points late in a tight first quarter, but the Celtics closed the frame on a 14-4 run to take a 25-18 lead into the second.
Jaylen Brown will wear custom Adidas vs. Raptors to honor late friend
For basketball players, their sneakers and their tattoos have become channels of personal expression and tribute, and on Friday night, Jaylen Brown will utilize his feet to honor his late friend, Trevin Steede.
Steede and Brown became best friends during their time together at Wheeler High School in Marietta, Georgia, and last season, inspired by Steede’s death, Jaylen Brown put forth one of the more dominant performances in his career when he helped lead the Celtics to a comeback victory over the Warriors.
Raptors Republic on Instagram: “The Double Block”
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Leonard wills Raptors to win over Celtics | Toronto Sun (auto-playing video)
“The only thing that surprised me were the MVP chants,” Leonard said, suggesting they were a bit early, but quickly adding he appreciated the support.
As good as Leonard was in that third quarter, his head coach sees even better days ahead for him. To start with, getting the benefit of the whistle which he has yet to see, but that was not all Nurse was talking about.
“He did a little bit of everything, right? He hit one or two threes in that quarter, he took a couple in transition to the basket and he had a couple of isolation point up plays,” Nurse said. “Again, that’s kind of his versatility, I think there’s some growth to be done with his screen and roll game, right? I think we can get him up the floor and get him into some more screen and rolls … he’s got a really good handle on it, he hasn’t really busted that out yet but he can do that as well.”
New-look Raptors win chess match against eerily similar Celtics – Sportsnet.ca
There is so much depth for both the Raptors and Celtics, and so many lineup combinations, that you had to do a double-take to make sure you weren’t watching Garry Kasparov vs. Deep Blue.
The chess match started before the opening tip, when Serge Ibaka replaced Jonas Valanciunas in the Raptors’ starting lineup, Nick Nurse favouring the veteran in a matchup against Boston floor-stretching centre Al Horford. And it continued from there, as the Raptors brigade countered the Celtics’ potent bench.
Almost man for man, the teams could go to their bench and find an ideal player to match up with. Marcus Morris is on the floor? Call OG Anunoby’s number. Aron Baynes, Boston’s lumbering big man, is playing? Put Valanciunas on him. And so on.
Even within the starting lineups, there was so much interchangeability in terms of matchups and defensive assignments — but that ability to switch assignments tends to play into Toronto’s favour against Boston, which is something most other teams can’t claim.
Game Preview: Raptors vs Wizards | Toronto Raptors
Interchangeable rules: Through the first two games of the regular season, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has continued his preseason preference of mixing up lineups and making quick substitutions. Having a truly versatile team is something he considers to be a huge asset. “We should be able to play with any lineup,” he said. “If there’s any matchup that doesn’t look good to us, we should be able to throw somebody out there and play and if there’s an injury or two we ought to be able to plug in and relax a little bit. Put the guys out there and have confidence that guy can play that position, knows the coverages, the sets, the inbounds plays, whatever they are and just play.” Though players knowing their role can be an important part of team success and cohesion, Nurse and his coaching staff are hoping as the season goes on that players realize how much lineup versatility can help everyone.“To me no matter what the scenario is you’ve got to be able to go out there and play,” Nurse said. “[Whether] it’s a back-to-back, it’s two on the road, it’s five in eight days, played 12 minutes last night and 30 tonight. You’ve got to be able to play when called upon and give the team what we need when called upon.”
One game at a time: Saturday’s game will be the first time the Raptors have faced the Wizards since a Game 6 victory in Washington to win their first-round series 4-2 last spring. Fred VanVleet is not giving too much time to looking in the rearview mirror thinking about last season, though. “I don’t really get into that too much,” he said. “We just know that’s a tough team coming off a back-to-back. We’ve got to go on the road and that’s a hard place to play. It wasn’t like that was an easy series by any means. We know what Washington brings to the table. They had a tough game [Thursday night] against Miami, so we’ll be prepared for that.”
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Danny Green can give the Toronto Raptors life lessons from his long NBA journey – SBNation.com
“He’s humble enough to understand that a large source of the interest in the podcast does happen because of his connection to Kawhi,” Sanford says.
Indeed, Green has been dubbed something of a Kawhi-whisperer in Toronto, as the man who knows the elusive superstar best. But he also has the tools to connect with the rest of the locker room, which is filled to the brim with players who similarly clawed for their current status.
“A lot of these guys weren’t first round draft picks. A lot of these guys were D-League. I know what they’re going through. They know what I went through,” Green tells SB Nation.
Before Green ever held up the Larry O’Brien Trophy, he was a former McDonald’s All-American who got cut from the Spurs twice, then travelled the world and back before embracing his calling as one of the NBA’s most vicious 3-and-D wings.
He was a second round pick, like Norman Powell. He played in Eastern Europe, like Jonas Valanciunas. He bounced around in the D-League, like Fred VanVleet. No matter who you are, you can see a little bit of yourself in Green, the imperfect perfectionist who came close to losing it all before finally finding his way.
Toronto Raptors vs. Washington Wizards: Preview – Raptors HQ
Not only did they add Jeff Green, they also added NBA journeyman Dwight Howard. No, journeyman is a bit disrespectful to someone like Howard. How about: they added a former all-star that played for three different teams in the last three years (much better).
The veteran centre has proven to be a bit of a Raptor Killer over the years, but has also proven to switch off during games for weeks at a time. A focused Howard is as devastating as ever and that’s why he still gets those looks from teams across the league.
But let’s be honest here — the Wizards always show some promise on paper and always flame out. Their game against Miami had a sequence at the end in which John Wall blocks a Josh Richardson layup causing a shot-clock violation, followed by a missed three, to playing great defense again only to give up an offensive rebound and score. I mean, how “Wizards” is that?
A fun night all around for Raptors fans | The Star
But that’s what Kyle Lowry did and not to many guys seize (a) the night or (b) the day or (c) the moment than he does.
The little spell there in the fourth quarter tells you all you need to know about the guy.
First, he goads Marcus Morris into an offence foul wrasslin’ in the post because Lowry doesn’t give an inch, ever. Then he comes down and nails a three-pointer for an eight-point lead and the game’s basically over.
It’s big time plays like that that separate him from the others and they’re the kind of plays at both ends that win games at game-winning time.
Nick Nurse made it point post-game to suggest they could have found more shots for Lowry, Lowry didn’t seem to mind in his post-game comments.
“I think I could have shot more, but we won the game, so I don’t really care, to be honest with you. I can always shoot more. We won the game, so I don’t care if I shoot two, three, four times. We won the game tonight. That’s all that really matters.”
Game centre: Raptors pull away late to ring up Celtics | The Star
In hindsight: Anunoby, who bruised his right orbital bone in Wednesday’s game, sported goggles for the first quarter of Game 2 but dumped them going into the second quarter. “We were joking around about that (Thursday). I said, ‘Are you going with (Kurt) Rambis or Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) or Horace Grant?’ and he said, ‘None of those. I gotta get some good ones,’” coach Nick Nurse said, naming a trio of goggle-wearing NBA icons. Nurse was asked if Anunoby, just 21 years old, would know those names. “I’m not sure. He did not let on that he did not know who they were.”
Centre of attraction: To take advantage of a matchup with Boston’s Al Horford, Toronto inserted Serge Ibaka into the starting lineup to replace Jonas Valanciunas. Ibaka made three of four field goals in his first eight minutes.
Dot, dot, dot: Boston’s Gordon Hayward remains on a minutes restriction, 25 per game, as he comes back from missing the entire 2017-18 season. He did not start the second half after playing 12 minutes in the first … Delon Wright (adductor strain) missed his second straight game for Toronto … The Raptors haven’t lost a season series to Boston since 2012-13. The teams play three more times this season.
Nick Nurse no stranger to Jonas Valanciunas’ big potential | The Star
So when Valanciunas does something that seems new or out of the norm, Nurse, the former assistant now the team’s head coach will quietly think to himself,
“yeah, I saw that coming.”
It’s why when the 7-foot Valanciunas makes some eye-popping pass like he has a handful of times in the infancy of this regular season, Nurse doesn’t get too worked up.
“Probably about four years ago … I went over there and really started working on some up-the-court ball-handling and firing the ball around a little bit more because I wanted to see what his skill level was like,” Nurse said of his summer forays to Valanciunas’s homeland
“It’s been a little while but we’re giving him a little organization on where those cuts are coming from and he’s finding them. Willing passer, that’s the good thing. He’s a willing passer.”
There is no doubt that Nurse sees myriad possibilities for Valanciunas that the Raptors will try to exploit this season. The six-year veteran is being asked to initiate more offence from the elbow or the high post to take advantage of those burgeoning passing skills.
In the season opener, Valanciunas made a near-perfect no-look pass to a cutting OG Anunoby for a baseline dunk; earlier in the same game, he’d taken a hard pass rolling down the lane after setting as screen and dumped it off for an easy basket rather than forcing a shot or committing an offensive foul.
Those were plays he might not have made even last season and which were impossibilities in his first couple of years.
A rivalry is born and 9 other takeaways from Celtics vs. Raptors – CelticsBlog
7. The Celtics ball movement was much better vs. the Raptors than vs. the 76ers, minus the last two minutes (more on that in a bit.). Boston finished with 29 assists on 40 baskets. Horford led the way with nine assists, while Kyrie Irving and Smart tallied six apiece. On a team with a lot of weapons, moving the ball is important to keep everyone involved.
8. An old bugaboo came back to haunt Boston late in the fourth quarter: defensive rebounding. After doing a nice job controlling the glass all game long, the Celtics let the Raptors get all over the offensive boards in the fourth. Serge Ibaka in particular had great success getting Toronto extra possessions. Horford does a lot of things well, but he’s not a dominant rebounder and Boston tends to close with a small lineup around Horford. It’s something they’ve got to figure out.
9. Speaking of closing the game…it’s pretty clear Stevens doesn’t have his five closers yet. Last year, without Hayward, it was Irving, Smart, Brown, Tatum and Horford. When Irving went out for the year, Terry Rozier took his place. That was always the group Boston used to close games. Opening Night didn’t feature closers, as the game was well in hand. Against Toronto, Stevens was clearly searching a little. With this much talent at his disposal, this is one of the most important decision Stevens will have to make.
